Networking Assignment

Principles of Management

Networking Assignment #1, #2

Interviews of Business Owners

For the first interview Scott Storick owner of Storick and Associates an office of MetLife was interviewed. Scott Storick is a Financial Service Representative for MetLife. His company specializes in selling life insurance, health insurance; MetLife endorsed stocks, and annuities. He also offers income protection programs such as disability. Mr. Storick has been in the business for over twenty years. He is a top three producer for MetLife. He is one of the most highly respected financial advisors in the United States. Sitting down with Scott Storick the first thing you realize is that he truly has a presence about him. He dresses in the finest handmade suits. He drives a 2010 new BMW M6. He was very open to answering my questions very honestly and candidly. He initially decided to get into the finance business after dropping out of the University of North Carolina. He had and wanted me to reiterate this, "no fear whatsoever, fear is for the weak." The main obstacle to overcome in starting and later running a successful business in the eyes of Mr. Storick is to get clients to put their trust and faith into you. The way he got his first customers was through cold calling. When cold calling lead to a base of clients, he depended on his clients to give him a strong positive word of mouth. In his eyes maintaining your client base is one of the most important aspects of running any successful business. He makes sure that he keeps some sort of contact with all his clients. His book of business is very large but he sends birthday emails, contacts them when policies are running out, and to make sure they are happy with their purchase and or advice. In his eyes everyone is a competitor of his. Admittedly Mr. Storick is very neurotic and believes everyone is a competitor and a direct threat to his network. In the finance field Storick has never failed, however he does make it a point to say if he's not making at least $1 million dollars a year in new business he considers it a failure. When asked what makes him different from his employees Storick smiled and showed me his American Express Black Card and in a cocky but honest voice said "success". Scott admits that because of work he doesn't spend as much time with his family as he should. He gets to the office at 8am and usually isn't home until at the very earliest 6pm. I've known Storick for a while now and know that work is his passion. He lives breathes his company. His products are all MetLife approved. Expansion is something that he doesn't have to do. In the finance field expansion is really what states you're licensed to do business in. Scott is licensed to conduct business in all 50 states. He does his business in person in Florida and North Carolina as they are the two states where he has offices in. The other forty-eight states he conducts business through the phone unless the commission will be "significant". Motivation, common sense, ambition, and self belief are just a few of the qualities needed to thrive in this business. Since Scott Storick is one of MetLife's top producers his advertisement is done on a much grander scale than his competitors. MetLife pays $50,000 once a year to a newspaper such as The Charlotte Observer, and The Sun Sentinel to take out a full one page ad to get a free insurance quote. Benefits are offered to his employees as long as they are full time and have worked for him for six months. He pays clients salary so overtime is not offered. Mr. Storick does all of his own accounting. The only thing that he would do differently is get into the finance business earlier than he did and not waste his family's money on College. The only message he gives us is to decide what business we want to be in and stick with it. The second interview was conducted with Jeff Daniels owner of the Stock Profiler. This is an email marketing company that promotes new companies penny stocks. Mr. Daniels has been in business for seven years. He is one of the top email marketers in Florida. He runs his company out of Boca Raton Florida. He has been in the business for seven years. When I interviewed Mr. Daniels he was a little pressed for time, but did his best to answer all of my questions. Jeff was dressed differently than my first interview subject. He had a polo shirt with his companies name and logo with a pair of jeans. He drove a new Dodge Turbo. Mr. Daniels first got the idea to start his business while working at another email marketing firm years ago. He has been in the business for the last ten years. When he left his original company to pursue opening his own company he was not nervous because he believed in his own ability to run his own company because he felt that he had been carrying his ex bosses company. He used money he had saved up over the years to initially start the business. The main obstacle that had to be overcome was getting clients to believe that they should invest